Affirmed By Fire
by VintageRonJohn
Summary: Following the events of Conduit 2, Michael Ford and the Destroyers must stop Tiamat from ravaging Earth.
1. Destroyers Past

**Agartha - October 26, 2012**

"What the- you're-" Michael Ford stammered, his thoughts racing but failing to explain the sight before him.

"Here to help," Abraham Lincoln finished. Next to Lincoln stood George Washington; behind them, a small cadre of armored Destroyers had just stepped out of the conduit, followed by Andromeda. "Where is Prometheus?" Lincoln growled.

"Whoa, slow down," Ford replied, still reeling from seeing half of Mount Rushmore in the flesh. "What did Prometheus do to you, anyway? You and Andromeda have it out for the guy."

"What he did," Andromeda snarled, "is betray our purpose-our trust. Our good faith." She touched Ford's shoulder, then paused. Her eyes shot to his. "He was in your armor, wasn't he? You've absorbed his power. I can tell."

Ford glanced at the Destroyers, each now eying him with suspicion, even hate. He didn't want to be caught with his loyalties in the wrong place. Not again. "Before we talk about Prometheus, I want to know this conversation doesn't end with my skull in pieces," he said.

She laughed. "Michael Ford, if the other Destroyers and I wished you dead, there would be no conversation. Prometheus chose good stock for his Destroyers. You meant well, I'm sure. You were misled. We were all misled."

"By Prometheus?"

"Who else?" Andromeda let a wry smile creep across her lips. "When he created the first Destroyers, and me as their aide, he told us we would defend humanity from his kind, the Annunaki-progenitors."

Ford was surprised to hear such cynicism in her words. Hadn't he destroyed the progenitors? Wasn't that Prometheus's goal?

"When you absorbed their power, Michael Ford, and called to Tiamat, you brought the Annunaki closer to our home," she said. "It is what the Pathfinder was sent to do, but ultimately rebelled against."

Ford removed his helmet and ran a hand through damp brown hair. Suddenly he was aware of the sweat blanketing his entire body. "If Adams-er, Enlil-was the good guy, then why did he leave me to die at the Washington Memorial?"

"Enlil had great foresight." George Washington spoke now. "He could have defeated me during or even before my presidency, but he knew it wouldn't help his cause. I morphed into one of his biggest human supporters, albeit almost a hundred years later."

"It is likely that Enlil knew you would summon Tiamat," Lincoln said. "And that you were not ready to embrace his ideals. Time being short, he tried to keep Prometheus from you as best he could."

"Damned if stopping an assassination attempt qualifies me for this," Ford murmured.

"Destroyers are hand-picked by Prometheus. Since he chose you, you're qualified," Lincoln said. "But to answer your question, it's hard to say, of course, what really drew the Annunaki to you. Perhaps it was your marksmanship. Perhaps it was a chicken-and-egg scenario where they each perceived trace hints of the other's desire for you, and through a sort of spontaneous combustion you became desirable for no good reason."

Ford slumped. He'd give anything to shirk the stifling Destroyer suit and return to the D.C. suburbs, where alien invasions were neatly confined to fiction and UFO wackjobs. Well, come to think of it...

"There's no turning back now," Washington added. "You're a Destroyer. The one who's contacted Tiamat, no less."

"What we need to know, Michael Ford, is whether you will fight with us," Andromeda said.

"I'm zero-for-two on picking sides in alien invasions. Why should I believe you?"

She smiled again. "Because the first two sides were the aliens."

He thought about it. "I'll join you," Ford answered. "And I can't wait to hear how the nine of us are going to stop an Annunaki army."

"With the help of our half-bretheren." John F. Kennedy stepped around Washington and smiled at Ford. "Do you remember, Mr. Ford, what the Free Drudge called you?"

"'The Liberator,'" he breathed.

"Some Drudge already pledge loyalty toward you," Kennedy grinned.

"The others," Washington began, "Will be greatly persuaded by the fact that you have usurped not just their creator, Prometheus, but their leader, Adams."

Ford wasn't fully convinced. The newly-freed Drudge might be unreceptive to his command-or worse.

"Destroyers, look at this," Andromeda gestured to a live feed of Washington, D.C., routed to her holographic screen via Atlantis. Drudge were assembling in the subway tunnels of the now-deserted city. Free Drudge congregated at the focal point, but Adams's Drudge comprised the bulk of the crowd. They didn't fight; they listened. On top of a burnt out rail car, a drone in bright scarlet overseer armor stoked the crowd with a speech. Based on the number of spikes protruding from his neck and shoulders, he was a well-decorated leader, or maybe even the commander in chief. He was-

"Thex!" Ford exclaimed. "I freed him from a Trust interrogation. We've been allies ever since."

Lincoln clapped Ford on the back. "Let's see how the Drudge greet their Liberator."


	2. The Liberator

**Washington, D.C. - October 27, 2012**

Thex wondered when the humans would return to D.C. The city had been important to them, sure, but so was landing on the moon, and they'd lost interest in that for decades. As long as D.C. was known as the site of an alien invasion and the mass poisoning of humans, he thought, plans to repopulate the area should fail. Without Adams, the U.S. government would be ill-prepared to fight the Drudge. The little niche Thex had carved out on Earth was surprisingly sturdy.

"Overseer Thex!" Lieutenant Kihta shouted from the hallway. Kihta was a speedy messenger dressed in lightweight beige armor and a jet-black visor. In the post-Adams era, she'd mastered the human motorcycle. She bounded through the doorway. "Intruders near the beltway, sir. Humans-Destroyers."

Could it be Ford, the Liberator? Precautions needed to be taken, regardless. Diplomacy was vital for maintaining the Drudge city's fragile independence. "Tell the Highway Guards not to shoot. We can't afford to spill human blood," Thex said. "Take them to Madam's Organ."

Kihta saluted. Thex returned the salute, then glanced out the window. Raindrops began pelting the glass. They reminded him of the bullets Destroyers had brought down upon his kind. Of the bullets he'd brought down upon his own kind, before Adams died.

He walked to the 12th floor elevator entrance, just around the corner from his office. Among the first modifications his people had made to the building was replacing the elevators. The doors on each floor had been ripped out, and the cars sealed to the basement floor. Thex leaped into the shaft and grabbed a cable with both hands. He swung his feet to the left and onto the wall of the shaft to slow his descent. Still, he crashed into the first floor with force that would have broken human legs. He stood and entered the lobby.

"Djukor, ready my escort. We'll want to look presidential if there are Destroyers in town."

"Where to, sir?" Djukor asked.

"Madam's Organ."

"Presedential indeed! Do we have business to conduct?"

"Only the unfinished kind, I suspect," Thex said.

**D.C. Outskirts - October 27, 2012**

The Destroyers approached the beltway: Kennedy at point, Ford on the left, and Lincoln behind. On the right was Martha Griffiths, the first female Destroyer Ford had seen. Unlike Andromeda's armor, Griffiths's was very similar to his own, save for a battle scar across the legs and two vertical bars spray-painted in yellow on the upper back.

"Drudge, three o'clock!" she shouted. Four motorcycles swooped down the beltway in a single-file line. The first Drudge raised an arm, and the other three slowed. Approaching the end of the exit ramp, the first Drudge picked up speed and then went into a hard skid. The Destroyers braced for a wreck and raised their weapons. There was no need, though; the Drudge came to a flawless halt, 30 or so feet from Griffiths.

"Destroyers! We mean you no harm. Lower your weapons." The Drudge was unarmed, and the Destroyers complied. "We wish to escort you to our leader, Thex," the Drudge said. "Is the Liberator among you?"

Ford was hesitant. "Yeah, I'm right here."

"Thex will be pleased. Each of you will ride with one of my trainees over there. Liberator, with me," the Drudge said. The others picked a trainee and hopped on behind them. Ford eyed his driver: taller than most drones, plain armor, and an unusual visor. He was grateful his driver was the most skilled.

"I'm not so sure I should be the passenger," Kennedy remarked. "How long have you been driving?" Lincoln and Griffiths chuckled.

"I have been driving for two weeks," the head Drudge said. It occurred to Ford that the others probably didn't know much English yet. "I might remind you that as half-progenitors, we learn quickly. My associates will follow my path through the ruins."

Kennedy nodded and the Drudge took off. Ford watched the buildings whiz by: some without roofs, some without walls, and some that he recognized clearly missing entire floors from the top. It was uncanny to see the city so still, too. But none of that was as unsettling as watching the road. The Drudge slalomed through abandoned cars and patches of rubble. At one point, where part of the highway had been knocked out, the Drudge had constructed makeshift ramps in each direction. Ford's driver slammed the throttle and launched the bike over the gap. Ford regretted glancing down at that particular moment. They landed with a bone-jarring thud that must have rearranged Ford's insides.

When they exited the highway for the city, they hopped a ramp's sharp curve, where a barrier used to be. All four motorcycles landed, one after another, on a cleared side street below. There was more debris in the city, and the motorcycles slowed to weave around it. Craters engulfed some roads; on others, concrete and steel was piled two stories high. Ford scanned the tall buildings and spotted Drudge snipers, in pairs, eight or nine stories up, all across the neighborhood. None of their strike rifles were charging, though.

The sun was setting, but aside from the motorcycle headlights, the city was nearly dark. Ford started to feel electronic dance music pounding nearby-he still couldn't hear anything over the sound of the motors. The Drudge passed the building with the thumping music and made one last right turn, into an alley. The lead Drudged raised an arm again, and the four bikes came to a rest.

"What's your name?" Ford asked his driver.

"Kihta," The Drudge responded.

"You're a hell of a driver, Kihta. Where are we?"

"Welcome, Destroyers," Kihta said, "to Madam's Organ."


	3. Madam's Organ

**Madam's Organ, Basement - October 27, 2012**

Thex watched the Destroyers enter the club's VIP area through the side door. A wall of video provided him with 36 different views throughout the building. He recognized the Liberator at once, and thought he knew the others from Adams's files. Soon after, Thex noticed Idek in a plush, dark-green leather chair near the door. Idek was a fierce elite under Adams who questioned the new Drudge regime. He definitely wasn't supposed to be in the VIP area tonight. Thex dashed upstairs.

"He is our tormentor, not a liberator!" Idek was yelling in his native tongue.

"He is here at the request of Overseer Thex himself," one of Kihta's accomplices snapped.

Thex turned the corner into the lounge and saw Idek reaching for his warp pistol.

"IDEK!" Thex bellowed. Idek's hand dropped. "These humans are the cause of our freedom. You know as well as I that life with Adams was complicated-for everyone," Thex said. He looked sternly at the rest of the VIP room. They all stared, dumbfounded. "It is my expectation that these people-Destroyers-will be our greatest allies in the coming months, and anyone-" he paused for effect. "_Anyone _who jeopardizes this friendship is no friend of the Drudge. Are we clear, Idek?"

Idek nodded, his gaze fixed firmly on the floor.

"Wonderful. Now, Destroyers, follow me please."

The basement was outfitted as one of Adams's many underground D.C. bunkers. It was circular. About a quarter of the wall was devoted to a large super computer set up to tap the city's many surveillance cameras. Another section was devoted to books. A single cot offered meager sleeping accommodations. There were no weapons; Adams never expected a firefight so deep in his own territory. In the middle was a rectangular wooden table. The Destroyers sat along one of the long sides, and Thex, Kihta, and Djukor sat opposite them.

"Earth is in grave danger. Prometheus has summoned Tiamat," the one he thought was Kennedy explained. "With your help, we might be able to stop the Annunaki from destroying humanity," Kennedy said.

"It might not be your home planet-" the Liberator started.

"It is our home planet as well as yours," Thex interrupted. "We Drudge were all created here. Enslaved here. The Drudge want to defend their home too."

"The Annunaki will not spare you after Tiamat comes," said another Destroyer, the one he knew as Lincoln. "Terribly racist creatures, Annunaki."

Thex knew that Adams was part of the Annunaki-powerful aliens that had cast ten of their own into exile on Earth. Prometheus was also one of them, making the Drudge half-Annunaki.

"We don't expect them to spare us," Djukor said.

"What is it that you want in return for your allegiance, then?" Griffiths asked.

"We want the Destroyers to ensure our independence. We want our own city," Kihta responded.

"We want D.C.," Thex said. He could see the Destroyers mulling over the arrangement.

"If we do this," the Liberator said slowly, "Your army will be under our command?"

"Without question," Thex said. He looked up through the thin bulletproof windows at the very top of the basement bunker, across the floor of the club. Drones were tightly packed, throbbing along with the music. They moved almost in unison, acting as a sort of amplifier for the bass hits. Mites crawled along walls and onto the catwalks above. It was a good thing Drudge don't sweat, Thex thought.

"You have yourself a deal," Kennedy said. Thex shook hands with the Liberator, then with Kennedy, Lincoln, and Griffiths. Kihta and Djukor followed suit.

"Tell me, Destroyers, do you have plans for stopping Tiamat?" Thex asked.

"Nothing that we're sure will work," Griffiths said. "Say, have the Drudge ever been in the water?"


	4. The First Temple

**Nippur, Sumeria - April 19, 2528 B.C.**

The heat was visible, rising off the sand on the desert horizon. Prometheus could see the groundwork for the great temple in the distance. Human slaves carried mud bricks and added them to the growing base. At the top was Enlil, in his natural form. He could afford to be-these people were building the temple for him, their god. By contrast, Prometheus was in a human form. His shoes dug into the dry desert floor and washed his toes with sand. Enlil recognized him approaching, as one progenitor does another.

"Ah, Prometheus! Good to see you again," Enlil said. He was in a good mood, his skin softly changing colors-first red, then brown, grey, blue.

"Good to see you as well, Enlil. How is the construction coming along?" Prometheus noticed two of the slaves arguing.

"Glad you ask. Your brothers and I are making great strides in the area of human manipulation. Our powers have long made us the subject of polytheistic religious myths, but we've discovered something even more... compelling." Enlil approached the bickering workers. He made a series of short clicking noises, a simple rhythm that he repeated a handful of times. Before Enlil finished, the disagreeable slave had returned to work, and was heading to fetch more bricks, moving about twice as fast as the others.

"O Enlil, great persuader!" the other slave proclaimed. All of the slaves nearby began to bow. Enlil turned back to Prometheus.

"This part is nice, but all the bowing can really go to your head," Enlil said. "What do you make of the first slave? The one moving faster now."

"Your pattern must have controlled him, somehow."

"Indeed. Humans have this vulnerability, you see. Short clicking sounds, arranged the right way and with the right cadence, can compel them to behave a certain way," Enlil said. "It's somewhat built into their own language, even. Right now the biggest barrier is figuring out more complex commands. I only told this one that he wanted to do what pleases me." Enlil smiled.

"You're talking about mind control!" Prometheus was aghast.

"Not exactly, brother," Enlil replied. "Think of it as strong mind-influence. The humans feel an itch to comply, but it is possible to resist. The real potential is when we get them in a group. Combine our clicks with a crowd of other humans doing the same thing, and that becomes very hard for an average human to resist."

"Exploitation like this will anger the humans. It poses a threat to us."

"Come now, Prometheus," Enlil laughed. "You know that we are superior to them. It is the natural order of life. We must mold them to our needs if we are to conquer Earth."

"The best way to mold them to our needs is to keep them happy. Polytheism has served us nicely, but tampering with their free will means tomorrow they will be on your doorstep calling for your head," Prometheus hissed. The mind-influenced slave continued to move double-time, eyes locked to his task.

"It is only experimental, for now," Enlil sighed. "And I agree that it would be unwise to exercise such influence to the point where the humans feel helpless." Prometheus worried. He kept on replaying Enlil's words in his head... _hard for an average human to resist... _what exactly did that mean? "I trust I will see you back here for the opening of my temple," Enlil said, looking brighter.

"Of course," Prometheus responded.

"It will be the jewel of our new capital city. A milestone in our indefinite rule," Enlil said.

Prometheus wasn't so sure anymore.


	5. Across The Pond

**London, U.K. - October 28, 2012**

In the tallest tower of the Palace of Westminster, a secret phone rang. It also relayed a special text message to David Cameron's phone that read simply: "Adams." Cameron wondered what had taken so long. He bounded up two flights of stairs to the special phone, caught his breath, and answered. "Adams? What's going on? I've seen your capital on the news. It's been leveled!"

"Adams is dead," a gruff voice replied. Rain pounded on the window, but everything else was still.

"Th- then who this?" Cameron stuttered.

"Call us Destroyers," another voice answered.

"What about the Drudge? Are they under control?" Cameron started to worry. D.C. could be in worse shape than he thought.

"The Drudge are free now. They've allied themselves with us. You needn't fear them."

"May I ask why you're calling, then? This isn't exactly a standard line," Cameron snapped. He felt his back and forehead begin to sweat in the humidity. Lightning bolts cracked the dark clouds and lit up the dim office.

"We need your help to stop Tiamat. We think she'll target the Internet," a third voice said.

"Who's Tiamat?" Cameron asked. He'd never heard Adams mention the name.

"She's an alien supercomputer. Adams's files say her miles of tentacles put her in contact with everyone in 'the place,' granting her access to total information and allowing everything to work in cold, efficient harmony. We suspect that, figuratively, her tentacles will be the infrastructure of the Internet, once she connects with it."

Cameron began to wobble slightly. It seemed impossible - an alien supercomputer mounting the entire Internet - but he'd had the special phone line long enough to know that there was no alien story too far-fetched. He grabbed onto the desk to steady himself. "How will you stop it - her?" he asked.

"Why, we'll cut the tentacles, one by one. Before she can appropriate them."

"You're going to cut up the Internet? That's mad!" Cameron was nearly yelling.

"The big underwater cables are perfect points to strike. If we can disable enough of those, Tiamat should be relatively confined thanks to the ocean. We'll need your navy to prevent people from repairing the damage."

"If we disable the bloody Internet, people will riot! There could be violence or casualties. It could be twenty times worse than last summer." Cameron was becoming frantic. The rain was pouring; drops had given way to waves moving down the windows in solid sheets.

"If you don't help us, people will work in cold, efficient harmony - to Tiamat's ends. Do you really want to find out what those ends might be?"

Cameron plopped down into the office chair. Everything secret he had learned since becoming Prime Minister - the Annunaki, the Drudge, the Trust - whirred around him. He could feel himself becoming dizzy. "How do I know this isn't a bunch of nonsense? You could be some sort of terrorists, trying to cause chaos. D.C. is comprised, and you're taking advantage." He found this explanation reassuring. He leaned back and kicked his feet up onto the desk. There was a brief silence on the other end.

"Are you alone, Prime Minister?"

"I don't know if I should answer that," Cameron said, taken aback.

"Hold on."

A small orange glowball appeared on the wall across from Cameron's desk. Cameron bit his tongue. The glowball grew wider and taller, and flattened itself against the wall. Cameron's eyes widened almost as much. The outer edges then began to harden, sort of like a pizza crust. Armored figures started emerging single-file from the lava-like orange center. Cameron fell backward onto the floor.


	6. The First Destroyer

**Uruk, Sumeria - July 18, 3193 B.C.**

Prometheus made his way through the sweltering street, looking for a resistor. One and two story buildings lined the road, a relatively small venue for Enlil. He stood on the roof of a small, one-story shop. His gaze followed Prometheus's movement through the crowd. "Some among you," Enlil bellowed, "would have you question your gods." Prometheus stepped past a man with rotten breath who was staring, eyes transfixed, body motionless, like most of the crowd. Enlil paused while the crowd booed the idea of questioning the gods, and then he added a few well-placed clicks as the noise died down. Mind influence.

"They call you sheep!" More jeers. Prometheus kept looking. He could feel Enlil's eyes frying him with scrutiny, as hot and angry as the sun. The escape wouldn't be easy. Then he noticed something in a second floor window, in a tavern almost directly across from Enlil. Prometheus slipped inside.

"They say your minds are feeble and easily manipulated," Enlil continued. Prometheus ignored the bartender's protests as he leaped up the stairs, four at a time. When he reached the second floor, a woman let out a small scream.

"I'm not here to hurt you," Prometheus exclaimed. A young couple looked at him, clutching each other, eyes wide as planets."You two aren't vulnerable to Enlil. Unfortunately my presence in this very room has quite suddenly put you in grave and immediate danger, and we-" Prometheus stopped. He heard panicked yells from the street. "We have to leave, _now!"_

The bars on the window snapped as Enlil ripped through the wall behind the couple, showering them with mud brick debris and wood. "I'll be taking these," Enlil declared as each of his hands reached for one of the human resistors. Prometheus had already begun sprinting at Enlil and met him chest to chest before he could seize the couple. The two Progenitors seemed to float for a beautiful moment, through the hole where the second-floor wall used to be and above the road. They landed hard on the dirt below, causing a new wave of panicked cries from the disoriented crowd. Enlil let out a guttural groan.

"Run!" Prometheus shouted to the humans. Enlil had recovered and threw Prometheus off of him. The crowd had circled around the fighting gods. Enlil charged straight at Prometheus, legs denting the ground and arms pumping furiously, electricity visible on his skin. At the last possible moment, Prometheus crouched low to absorb the hit, then thrust upward with all his might, sending Enlil's feet into the air. Enlil let out a gasp of surprise as he flipped and landed on his back with a sickening thunk. Prometheus rolled Enlil over, exposing his now twice-injured back. He grabbed a wooden post from the wreckage of the tavern and smacked Enlil squarely on the spine.

"Let this be a lesson to you about immorality," Prometheus said to the astonished humans. Then he dropped the post. It wasn't time to destroy Enlil - not yet. "Come with me," Prometheus called to the resistors. The three fled while they had the chance.

Once Prometheus had tucked the trio neatly away in a basement a few kilometers from Uruk, he gave the humans the explanation he promised.

"Who are you?" the man asked. He looked warily at Prometheus. His black hair was covered in red and brown dust. On his sweaty skin, the dust had formed a thin layer of grime. His simple clothing was torn at the knees and various places on the arms, but he suffered only minor cuts. He needed a bath, but otherwise he was fine.

"My name is Prometheus. I am part of the same race as Enlil. I'm sorry, I didn't catch your names," Prometheus said.

"I'm Utnapishtim, and this is Andromeda," the man said.

Andromeda's headdress was ruined. She removed it and revealed jaw-length jet black hair, unusually short for a Sumerian woman. The rest of her clothing was in better condition, and she wasn't scratched up - Utnapishtim had probably shielded her from the wall Enlil broke. "Nice to meet you, Prometheus," she said. "But why are you interested in us?"

"Enlil has been tampering with the human psyche to control people," Prometheus explained, "and his method didn't work on you two."

"Why would Enlil need to control humans?" Utnapishtim asked. "He is already worshipped as a god."

"Enlil is no god. That is a myth that we have created to explain our power. Enlil and I are both Annunaki. He is the most powerful among us, and so as the leader of the Annunaki he is the foremost human god. Lately he's become very... greedy, shall we say... with regards to humans and their labor," Prometheus said. "He's experimenting with mind control as a way to unleash potential even greater than that which comes with religious zeal."

"To what ends? What could a god like Enlil possibly want?" Utnapishtim asked in disbelief.

"I'm not even sure Enlil knows the answer to that," Prometheus replied. "But the power fascinates him, and it could be dangerous to your kind."

"What do you want with us?" Andromeda asked.

"I want you to kill your god," Prometheus said with a wry smile.


End file.
